first kegging tastes like alcohol....

I just kegged for the first time - Great, right? Well not exactly. I brewed a clone of Mac N Jack's African Amber - Great, right? Well, not exactly. Having brewed / bottled this beer before I was super-excited to have it on tap. Using my new keg set-up (won from this site). Everything was the same during the process as when I bottled. I used priming sugar in the keg and let it sit for 2 weeks. I burped it before hooking up the CO2, set it to 8 psi and chilled it to about 38 degrees. first pint poured like a champ. great head retention, could smell the hops in the head...crazy excited at this point...first taste - damn! it tastes like alcohol. I had run san star through the keg and rinsed it thoroughly...what could cause this taste? can i save this batch?
thanks and happy brewing!

StarSan won't cause an alcohol flavor. I rack beer to kegs that have plenty of foam in them.

What temp did you pitch at? Ferment temp?

You rinsed the keg? Star San in a no rinse sanitizer, if in fact you ran tap water through the keg after the fact it's possible ya got some bacteria in the keg causing an infection..just a guess though. Did you sample it before it went into the keg? How did it taste?

Isn't beer supposed to have an alcohol taste..?

lol

But it Smells Good??

Research Off flavors → (tastes like alcohol)? sure to be a reason..

Hope you can figure that one out.! weird...

Does it smell/taste like nail polish remover?


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It usually takes four to six pours off the keg before the flavors get "right". Yeast will settle to the bottom while its conditioning and the keg draws from the bottom - so, your first few pours will include some of this yeast.

I pitched the yeast at 75 - just where it directed. I think you nailed it Big Floyd with the fermentation temperature. Everything else was the same as before, I have moved my fermentation bucket location - guess it is time to move it to the keezer. Time to dump it and start over.
thanks

westy75cal said:

I pitched the yeast at 75 - just where it directed. I think you nailed it Big Floyd with the fermentation temperature. Everything else was the same as before, I have moved my fermentation bucket location - guess it is time to move it to the keezer. Time to dump it and start over.
thanks

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Instructions that tell you to pitch a typical ale yeast at 75*F are wrong.

Next time, ignore them and try to get it down to 60-62*F for pitching. Strains like US-05, S-04 do nicely at 64-65*F beer temp while actively fermenting then finish at 68*F or so. For Nottingham, subtract 5-6*F. It does best cooler.